


Cultivation

by Aqualisier



Series: Cause and Effect [3]
Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 03:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aqualisier/pseuds/Aqualisier
Summary: Past a certain point, Naoya didn't know whether he saw his cousin first and foremost as a weapon to hone against God, the soul of his departed brother come back to haunt him, or just as Kazuya Minegishi. Pre-canon, angst pertaining to Naoya being Naoya.





	Cultivation

**Author's Note:**

> this was kinda frankensteined together from a few old drafts I had lying around, lol. this relationship is so interesting to dig into.

Nine-year-old Naoya Minegishi woke up in the hospital with a concussion, a few lacerations, and a broken arm, but no other serious injuries.

The first face he saw when he opened his eyes was his father's--wait, no, that was his uncle. He and his father were twins, and he'd only met his aunt and uncle a few times before, so of course he wouldn't have recognized him immediately. And by the look of it, he'd been crying. There was only other person in the room, as far as he could tell, and that was just a nurse.

Naoya groaned, and pressed the arm that wasn't bound in a cast to his forehead. The sound startled his uncle, who was clearly very rattled, but did his best to maintain his composure for his young nephew's sake. "Naoya! Thank goodness, you're awake!"

Naoya's memory of what had landed him here was a bit hazy--which was a rarity, because his memory was sharp enough that he could recall minute details from over ten lifetimes ago. The most likely explanation was that he'd hit his head, and would probably recover his memories of the incident later. Until then, he still wanted some answers.

"What... happened?" he asked, mind still foggy. It seemed like he'd been given some medication, and he reckoned that when his mind cleared up so would his pain senses.

His uncle fell silent for a moment. "How... how much do you remember?"

 _Far, far too much,_ he thought, but held his tongue. Although his present injuries were fairly tame, he really did not feel like digging through the vast archive of his memory in his current state. Not when it was much easier to just ask for information. "What happened?" he said again, more clearly.

Another wave of silence fell over them, until his uncle sighed, and looked away. "You and your parents were in a car wreck," he said, and come to think of it he _did_ remember being in the car with them. "I don't know how to say this, but you... you're the only one who made it out alive."

That was a reasonable explanation for the present situation. "Oh, okay," he said, and went back to sleep.

\---

In all fairness, it wasn't as if Naoya particularly disliked his parents. They were pretty normal people, and generally busy enough with their own lives to take a hands-off approach to raising him. It had become clear fairly quickly that Naoya could manage just fine by himself, after all. It was just... well, he'd been born into so many families that after a certain point they stopped mattering as anything more than temporary caretakers. The parents of Naoya Minegishi dying was... a minor inconvenience.

That was one of many things he appreciated about Japanese culture, though: people didn't pry. The nurses, his teachers, not even his aunt and uncle pressed the subject. The kid had just lost his parents--he was undoubtedly traumatized enough. At least he remained calm, and didn't react hysterically. They would overlook the fact that he was a bit _eerily_ calm.

His uncle had agreed to take him in, which he was fine with. At least he wouldn't be put into foster care, or worse yet another orphanage. Come to think of it, his aunt had given birth three years previously, right? Not that he'd ever gone to meet the boy, busy with his programming studies as he was. There was so much he had to catch up on since he'd last been active in the field, after all.

So he wouldn't be an only child anymore. Another minor inconvenience.

When he was discharged from the hospital, having recovered fairly quickly, his uncle thought it best to take him directly to his family's household rather than back to his own, now empty, even if he hadn't gotten his belongings situated yet. They would deal with that later, over the course of multiple trips. They could find somewhere for him to sleep. Again, Naoya was fine with this. As long as he was allowed access to a computer and could pick up where he left off as soon as possible, it didn't make much difference.

He followed his uncle up to the steps of the door, watched impassively as he unlocked it, and when they entered they were greeted by–oh. _Oh._ Now _this_ was interesting.

“Kazuya, say hello to your cousin. His name is Naoya. He’ll be living with us from now on.”

The toddler was half asleep in his aunt's arms, probably not fully aware of what was going on. But when they made eye contact, Kazuya did not let it go. Naoya would recognize the light in those eyes anywhere. He restrained himself from smirking, features impassive as the ancient gears in his mind began to turn.

God's ordeal was on the horizon. The War of Bel was drawing to a close.

This life might be more interesting than he had expected.

\---

Using a human with Abel's soul to win the Throne of Bel was only one of about four concurrent schemes Naoya reckoned had any chance of actually killing God, but if pressed he would have to admit it was his personal favorite. What better revenge, after all, than to turn His blessing into a weapon that would strike Him down? What better way to free both himself and his brother from the fate that bound them?

(What better way to atone?)

It wasn't as if those who bore Abel's soul were literally his reincarnations. He knew that. They had inherited his essence--the blessing from God he had forfeited when he fell to the demon world--but were otherwise no different from ordinary humans. Humans who all led fortune-favored, blessed lives, but normal humans all the same. 

If a Bel fell by the hand of a regular human or demon, its power would be forfeit. With nothing to anchor it, it would simply return to Babel. But if, for instance, the one who dealt the killing blow was a human whose soul bore a small link to Bel--to Abel, enough to stir his brother from his slumber... that would be enough to anchor it, to create a human Bel. A being superior to the original, powerful enough to face God, and _win._

It was just a matter of finding a suitable vessel for that power. Though he'd crossed paths with a handful of humans with the... qualifications, shall we say, even within the short span of his time as Naoya Minegishi, none of them instilled him with much confidence. Even if he found a way to ensnare one such passerby within the web of his machinations, that alone would not be enough. It took a special kind of person to look a demon lord, much less God Himself, in the eye and not crack under the pressure. It took a special kind of pawn to make it across God's chessboard, and be crowned Queen. (King, technically, but that didn't suit the metaphor.)

And now, such a pawn had fallen right into his lap--young enough to be a blank slate he could mold to his liking, young enough that if Naoya wished it, he could become exactly the kind of person he had been waiting for. He knew by now how to wrap another human being around his finger, and that he was fortunate enough to start cultivating his relationship with Kazuya Minegishi while he was still young and impressionable. It was almost too good to be true.

How much of the human Bel would be the body's human owner, how much would be Bel, and how much would be Abel? He supposed it didn't matter.

\---

Abel aside, it actually wasn't as troublesome as he'd expected, living with his three-year-old cousin.

Naoya had, of course, plenty of experience raising small children--one of the many skills he possessed that you'd never guess by looking at him. After his first few hundred years he rarely had any of his own unless obligated, but that didn't mean he never found himself having to care for them. Though he preferred the company of adults, often adults and children weren't all that different, save for life experience--which, by that metric, all humans were children compared to him.

It was... well, it was a lot like tending to crops, if he wanted to think of it _ironically._ Certainly there was nobody more skilled at tending crops than he, curse notwithstanding. You had to provide a certain amount of care, and if you knew how they worked you could control how they grew, but at the end of the day there was only so much control you could have over a living thing's natural growth.

And much like crops, some children were just naturally more demanding than others. Kazuya was not one such child. Not to the point where he was some sort of miracle child who never cried, never fussed, always did as he was told with a smile, but he was bright, inquisitive, and neither loud nor prone to tantrums. Vaguely Naoya remembered his own parents discussing how well behaved their nephew was, back before he had any reason to believe it would matter.

He was also, as Naoya came to realize rather quickly, a bit shy--at least, around him. It wasn’t that he went out of his way to hide from him, but seemed more inhibited in his presence, often ignoring whatever he was occupied with to stare up at him with those unblinking blue eyes. 

He didn't think much of it, until his aunt commented one day, "He isn't usually this reserved--he's probably just a bit wary of you. Kazuya, has Naoya done anything mean to you?"

She was only half-joking--he wasn't from her side of the family, so despite herself she was slower to warm up than his uncle had been. Besides, he couldn't really blame her if she considered him strange. Kazuya shook his head, but Naoya eyed him. He was just a normal boy, he couldn't possibly... no. There was no way he should be able to remember.

The next time Kazuya watched, intently, unblinking as Naoya quietly unpacked some more of his things, he made up an excuse to leave the room.

\---

Once the computer from his previous household had been moved to his new room, Naoya wasted no time resuming his studies.

His relationship with computer science extended back several lifetimes, back to when the field was only theoretical. In the first half of the 19th century he had been a British noblewoman with close connections to many of the nation's newest and brightest scientific minds. The prospect of a "computing machine" to simplify high level mathematics was a subject she often discussed with some of her associates in the field, but when given the task of translating a lecture on the machine's capabilities she realized that its potential was far, far greater. Nobody else had lived long enough to fully grasp what implications this had, for all of humanity.

A century and a half was all that it took for that potential to be made reality. In the broader context of human history, that was _astoundingly_ fast. Even just fifty years ago, the computers his previous incarnation had crossed the Pacific to work with had been massive, clunking machines that took up half a room. And here he was now, accomplishing more now as a child sitting alone in his bedroom than he had over his past three lifetimes of rigorous work and study.

He sat back and watched as his code compiled, processor humming as strings of text flickered across the screen. It was clean, beautiful precision--pure logic, webs of cause and effect, laws of reality governed by man rather than the divine. He hadn't felt this _alive_ since the days of old, when his touch nurtured the fields rather than blighted them.

"Big brother?"

Naoya felt his chest tighten, concentration shattered. When had he...?

_Abel?_

He turned to see Kazuya, who had apparently snuck into his room at some point, stuffed toy clutched in one hand as he looked up at him in his usual owlish way.

"...Naoya," Kazuya continued. "Play with me."

Naoya regained his composure. _Kazuya, not Abel._ He sighed–-he preferred working in solitude, and though young children demanded attention, he couldn’t always afford it. He hoped this wouldn't be a regular occurrence. "Shouldn’t you be in bed, Kazuya?"

"I, um..." he rubbed his eye with his unoccupied hand, "I'm not sleepy. I saw a light on."

No doubt he meant the computer screen. He might need to be more covert in the future. “Come on,” he said, and stood up. “It’s time you got back to bed. Your mom and dad will be upset.”

“But I’m not sleepy!” he protested. “I wanna play!"

This was the first time since his arrival that Kazuya had been so talkative around him, much less _demanded_ anything of him. Naoya wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. He patted his young cousin on the head. "I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll fix you some hot cocoa if you promise to go to sleep. And when you wake up tomorrow, we can play whatever you like. How does that sound?"

Kazuya considered it. "Hmmm... okay," he said, and yawned. _'Not sleepy,' eh?_ "Naoya. Can I have it with marshmallow on top?"

Naoya smiled at him, because he needed to. "Of course."

Kazuya followed him to the kitchen right at his heels, much like a baby duckling. When he stopped in front of the counter to fix him his late night treat, he bumped into him softly. Naoya glanced at him, and there was that owlish stare again. He couldn't figure out whether it unnerved him, or...

He mixed the cocoa powder with hot milk under his cousin's expectant gaze, but his mind was elsewhere. "Big brother," Kazuya had called him. He knew it was only natural, that a young child's concept of extended family was limited. He knew it was the best understanding he had of who he was, why he was here. He knew he was not the person he had killed.

But still...

That had been the first time since the original that one bearing Abel's soul had called him "brother."

(Kazuya knew nothing of this. But he noticed the way Naoya froze up when he called him brother, and he noticed the way he relaxed, and opened up to him, when he called him by name. He would not call him "brother" again.)

\---

Naoya celebrated his tenth birthday about a month after moving in with his aunt and uncle, and by then they were growing accustomed enough to his presence to treat him more like a son than a guest. Even his aunt was beginning to warm up to him, and even had him help her with household chores.

It helped, of course, that he showed himself to be a computer science prodigy. What annoyed him was when they started bragging about it.

For his birthday his aunt and uncle gave him a newly released Windows model that felt more like an investment in his potential than a heartfelt gift, and Kazuya made him a birthday card with crayons and construction paper. It wasn't much, but the gesture felt much more sincere.

He would, occasionally, turn to see Kazuya staring at him while he honed his programming. Kazuya would ask what he was doing, and he would explain it to the best of his ability. He wasn't sure how much Kazuya actually understood, but his questions seemed genuine, and he was glad (relieved?) that the boy had become more talkative as of late. Maybe he really had just been shy.

Sometimes, he let Kazuya play on it (supervised, of course), guiding the mouse and giving him detailed instructions, but was surprised to find that he never picked up more than a passing interest in it. He would play a few games, maybe open a webpage, but quickly grow bored and go find something else to play with. More content he seemed to simply watch Naoya, though this too grew less frequent as he picked up interests of his own.

That wasn’t to say his fascination with Naoya himself waned at all, as he saw when he one day went to get a snack and found himself being followed by a curious three-year-old. When he grabbed a small bag of chips for himself, Kazuya took another. Naoya watched him amusedly as he struggled to follow his lead in opening it, but after a minute he sighed.

“Let me help.” He took the bag from an increasingly agitated Kazuya. “Like this.”

He pulled open the bag, and handed it down to his now starry-eyed cousin, who beamed and thanked him. Naoya smiled back, because he needed to, and thought that was the end of it.

Apparently not. He had scarcely taken a step out of the kitchen before realizing Kazuya was right on his heels. He slowed briefly upon acknowleding him, then continued at his normal pace back to his room, Kazuya struggling to keep up. When he sat back down at his computer, Kazuya settled right next to him, cross-legged. Naoya peered down at him, and he looked back up at him expectantly. He actually did have homework to do, but by now he trusted Kazuya not to be a disturbance--an uncommon trait for a toddler. He was a curious one.

After their staredown continued for a few seconds or so, Naoya returned his attention to the computer screen and his own bag of chips, vaguely aware that Kazuya had started eating the moment he did. Amusingly enough, it turned out he hated the flavor in question, and spat out the first bite into his hand before putting the rest of the bag on the floor beside him. Naoya took the bag wordlessly, and pushed the air out before folding and clipping the top shut. This fascinated Kazuya.

“Go throw that away, then wash your hands,” Naoya instructed, nodding at the chewed up morsel in his hand. Kazuya did as he was told, and shortly after he returned he fell asleep at Naoya's side, almost like how a cat might curl up on his lap. He continued working.

\---

Kazuya grew up fast, and eventually started attending school himself.

It turned out that he had some of the highest marks in his year. He excelled at picking up new material, and although he was often silent in class he was frequently praised by teachers for being such a good listener. It seemed that the Minegishis could now boast two “little geniuses.” True, he didn’t do quite as well as Naoya, who had perfect marks on all subjects, but considering their circumstances, it was unfair to compare them. Not that anyone else knew this, and Naoya became concerned that his parents _would_ start holding them to the same standards. Kazuya seemed unconcerned, at least.

“Don't worry too much about grades, or what anyone else thinks. You'll get the hang of it,” Naoya told him, while helping him with his grammar homework. Kazuya smiled at this, encouraged all the same.

One day, when Kazuya was six, he came home from school, went straight to Naoya’s room, and asked, “Naoya. What makes the wind blow?”

“Air pressure,” he said without looking up. “Air is not evenly distributed in the Earth's atmosphere, so when there's more air in one area than another, the air travels to where there's less. Think about when a balloon deflates. The wind you feel is the air traveling.” A simplistic way of putting it, but within a six-year-old’s capacity to understand.

Kazuya squinted at him. “One of the big kids at school said it was because of birds flapping their wings.”

“Apparently one of the big kids at your school is wrong.” He chuckled briefly. “Don’t believe everything you hear. A lot of people will lie to you just because you’re young and they think you’re not smart enough to know better.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Are _you_ lying to me, Naoya?”

“Nonsense. Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m young and you think I’m not smart enough to know better.”

That actually caught him off guard. He had to give him credit for being sharp enough to consider the possibility. He looked up at Kazuya. _“Are_ you smart enough to know better?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I didn’t believe what the big kid said about the birds.”

Naoya looked at him intensely. “But do you believe _me?”_

Kazuya considered it. “I don’t know. Thanks, though.” And he ran off to play in his room.

Naoya stared after him. He had thought Kazuya would believe him unconditionally, as children tended to do respected elders. Doubt was a trait he appreciated in people, and it tended to be a trait best encouraged in children--as well as a trait generally discouraged of them by others. It was probably for the best that Kazuya wasn’t a gullible idiot, but he’d expected him to go along with what he said more easily. The original Abel certainly would have. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

\---

"Naoya, can you help me with this science experiment?"

He glanced in Kazuya's direction. He was occupied, but it was nothing that couldn't wait a few minutes. "What is it that you need?"

"We're planting bean sprouts, and measuring how much they grow under different amounts of sunlight."

Naoya pinched the bridge of his nose. Of _course._ "I hope you're not expecting me to do the experiment for you. That would be contrary to the point of the assignment."

"I dunno," Kazuya said. "It seems pretty menial to me. We learned about photosynthesis in class already. And besides, the sample size is too small to draw any significant conclusions."

Naoya eyed him. Kazuya was sharp, but he was just eight. "Who taught you that?"

"You did."

Ah. So he had. He needed to watch how much he rubbed off on his young cousin. "That may be so," he said, "but there's always something to be said about experiencing it for yourself. Besides, for an experiment this simple, you shouldn't need to worry about anything significant beyond the overall trend of the results. You don't need my help for something so basic."

Kazuya didn't seem totally convinced. "Last semester you helped me shortcut my solar system model because you said there was nothing worthwhile to be gained from it."

Naoya chuckled. "There wasn't. Astronomy is a lot more complicated than growing a few sprouts, you know. If you're so interested in life sciences, I'll teach you about the internal processes by which plants convert sunlight to ATP later this evening, when I'm finished with this. Other than that, there's not much I can help you with."

Kazuya made a face. "I'll pass. Guess I'll go get started on the project."

He left the room. That could have gone worse than it had, if his cousin had been more demanding. No matter. Naoya turned his attention back to his laptop, to his open IM window. To one contact in particular.

__**> Sorry for the delay, Mr. Kuzuryu--I had to help out a family member.**  
>Of course, I understand. Family is everything.  
**> Indeed it is. Now, about what we were discussing earlier... have you given any thought to how humanity may overcome this ordeal you spoke of?**

A few months later, he and Kazuya were in the fresh produce section of the grocery store when he asked, completely out of the blue, "Naoya, why do you hate plants?"

That completely derailed his train of thought. "...Why do I _what?"_

"Well," Kazuya said, and from the look on his face he seemed to think this a totally normal thing to ask, "you've always just... been kind of weird about plants. Like with my science experiment, or the time we went camping and me and Yuzu went to pick wild berries last summer. Even now you refuse to go within two feet of the fruits and vegetables. It's really weird, even for you. And that's saying a lot. Do you have some kind of plantphobia? Did plant monsters kill your parents?"

Naoya stood in stunned silence for a moment, processing what Kazuya had just said. Then, he laughed. Not loudly, but long, hard, and probably creepily enough that Kazuya seemed a little bit concerned. He honestly hadn't expected Kazuya--or anyone, really--to actually take notice of that particular habit. And even if they had, not to draw such a strange conclusion. ...Though, he supposed it wasn't so strange, from Kazuya's point of view. Come to think of it, was he really all that unusual, or was it Naoya's own fault for looking at him and seeing the role he had to play before a young boy like any other?

If he held no relevance to Bel, to Abel, to _Cain,_ would he still...?

"You really are an odd one, cousin," he said, face buried in his hand, and his laughter subsided. "It's nothing as complicated as you might think. Just... personal preference."

As usual, he wasn't sure if Kazuya was actually convinced.

\---

_He was bound, beaten and dragged before the mob of jeering townspeople, pelted with rotten vegetables and shriveled wheat. Still a child, there was nothing he could do but lie down and take it._

_"It's all his fault! He's the reason our crop failed!"_

_"Witch! Demon child! Evil thing!"_

_"Kill him! Before he curses us all!"_

_"See for yourself!" The man he'd called father in that life ripped the clothes off his back, and when he tried to protest he was kicked sharply in the stomach until he retched blood and collapsed. "He was born with this mark! He is no son of mine--he's not even human!"_

_He gritted his teeth. Ironic, that the mark of Cain which God had branded him with for "protection" was being used to persecute him. The year's crop had failed due to drought, but he'd gotten careless in hiding his curse, and the starving villagers wanted somebody to blame. Vengeance sevenfold wouldn't strike them until he was too dead to care._

_The first stone hit him in the ribs, then another broke his leg, then another cracked his jaw, then another, and another, and--_

"Naoya?"

Naoya awoke with a start, panting heavily, and it took a moment to ground himself in the present, switch his thoughts from frantic Akkadian to collected Japanese. He breathed deeply. That had been an old, old memory.

Kazuya stood at his bedside, hand rested on his forearm. His eyes shone with genuine concern, even in the dim light. Naoya pulled his arm away and rubbed his forehead. "How long have you been there?"

"Not that long," he said. "I just got up to use the bathroom, and I thought I heard something. ...Were you having a bad dream?"

It was nothing he wasn't used to. He cast another glance at Kazuya, still looking up at him with a bit too much emotion for comfort, and shut his eyes. "It's nothing you need concern yourself with. Go back to sleep."

That didn't seem to satisfy him. The feeling of Kazuya's gaze boring into him didn't subside. Finally, he said quietly, "Is there anything I can get you?"

Hm. At least he had been courteous enough not to press for information, perhaps (correctly) assuming that Naoya would only clam up tighter if prodded. He took another deep breath, and composed himself. "You're the last person who should be worrying about me," he said, and gave him an affectionate pat on the head. "I'll be alright. I just need some rest, is all. ...You too. It's a school night."

Kazuya flushed, and withdrew from Naoya's touch. "I'm not a little kid anymore," huffed the ten-year-old.

Naoya chuckled. "Of course not. And I assume you don't need me to tuck you in bed?"

"Oh, shut up," Kazuya grumbled, and headed to the doorway. Before he left, he cast one last glance in Naoya's direction, and looked as if he was about to say something. A moment passed, and Kazuya swallowed whatever words were on his tongue and left in silence.

When he was alone, Naoya traced a finger along the scarring between his shoulderblades, where his flesh had once been branded by God. The brand worn by each incarnation like prison identification. The brand that, though the physical mark that branded him sinner was seared from his body long ago, he still wasn't entirely freed from. He dug his nails into his skin. He would live life bound by Him no longer.

If everything went as planned, and his cousin won the Throne of Bel, how much of him would be Bel, how much would be Abel, and how much would still be...? He reminded himself that it didn't matter.

He did eventually go back to sleep, with some difficulty. When he did, he dreamed of the day he had murdered his brother, except the face he saw lying before him, bloodied and lifeless and broken, was not Abel's, but Kazuya's.

Ah... another minor inconvenience.


End file.
